The first Miss America to come from Arkansas, Donna Axum Whitworth, has died in Texas.
Whitworth’s husband, Brian Whitworth, says she died Sunday at a hospital in Fort Worth. She was 76.
A cause of death was not released. Brian Whitworth says his wife suffered a variety of illnesses, but was well enough to travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, less than two weeks ago where she visited friends and attended a University of Arkansas football game.
Donna Axum Whitworth was born Jan. 3, 1942, and was the first El Dorado baby born that year, “so I got all the prizes from the merchants as the first baby born of the year,” she said in a 2013 article in the El Dorado News-Times. At the time, her family lived in a house across the street from the hospital. Later, they moved to Woodland Drive.
When she was a 16-year-old high school senior at El Dorado High School, she was crowned Miss Union County and, in college, her sorority Delta Delta Delta at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville nominated her for Miss University of Arkansas, where she finished as second runner up.
She later entered and won the Arkansas Forestry Queen competition, which qualified her to enter the Miss Arkansas pageant. Whitworth won the swimsuit and talent competitions, breaking a tie for first place. She became Miss Arkansas and the state’s contestant at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., where she was crowned Miss America 1964.
Whitworth attended high school at the site which now holds South Arkansas Community College.
“The high school used to be a junior college,” she said in the 2013 article. “It was three stories tall with really steep stairs. At our 25th class reunion, we had a key and could walk around the halls. It still had the same smell and was just flooded with memories.”
As a child in El Dorado, “Rialto was the only game in town to go. It cost 10 cents apiece for tickets. Mother and Daddy would send us to the theater. We would sit through it twice. Between shows we would go out and get Boston Red Beans,” she recalled in 2013.
After winning Miss America and using the scholarship her crown afforded her, Whitworth completed her bachelor’s degree in speech and drama at the University of Arkansas in 1966. She was a graduate teaching assistant and received her master’s degree in speech and drama in 1969.
Whitworth used her public recognition to focus on areas she was passionate about — education and arts education.
Through the rest of her life, Whitworth remained a strong supporter of the University of Arkansas and the pageant. In 1988, she was named one of UA’s Distinguished Alumni. In 2000, she was named to the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni Academy in 2000. She established an endowed scholarship fund for UA students who graduate from Arkansas high schools and show financial need. She gave a gift of $250,000 toward the creation and dedication in 2003 of the 10,000-square-foot Donna Axum Fitness Center in UA’s Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Building.
Her sorority’s national organization named her one of the “Top 100 Tri Deltas in the First 100 Years.”
Funeral services are scheduled for Friday in Fayetteville.